Cruz tried to shoehorn references to every right-wing bogeyman he could, claiming O’Rourke was to the left of Nancy Pelosi (drink!), Bernie Sanders (drink!), and Elizabeth Warren (drink!). “We’re seeing nationally, socialists like Bernie Sanders, like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez [drink!] and, indeed, Congressman Beto O’Rourke advocating for those same policies,” Cruz said. He also namechecked Hillary Clinton (drink!), saying O’Rourke would like Supreme Court Justices even more to the left than ones she would’ve appointed. (It’s worth pointing out that Ted Cruz said if Clinton won the election he would try to keep Scalia’s vacated Supreme Court seat open for her entire term.)

“You know only one of us has been to each county in Texas and would have an idea of what Texas values and interests are.” — @BetoORourke

O’Rourke called Cruz out for his disingenuous fear-mongering about “Texas values” and slammed him for being an absentee senator. “Only one of us has been to each county in Texas and would have an idea of what Texas values and interests are,” O’Rourke said. “Within months of being sworn to service, your Senator Ted Cruz was not in Texas. He was in Iowa. He visited every single one of the 99 counties of Iowa.”

.@BetoORourke defends the protests of kneeling athletes: “There’s nothing more American than that.”

Speaking of “Lyin’ Ted,” the debate moderators asked Cruz directly about his humiliating loss of whatever dignity he had left for becoming a Donald Trump’s biggest cheerleader after Trump viciously insulted his wife and accused his father of involvement in the JFK assassination during the 2016 primaries. “After the election in 2016, I faced a choice,” Cruz said. “I made a conscious choice to do the job I was elected to do, which was to represent 28 million Texans.”

It’s quite a turnaround for Cruz, who refused to endorse Trump at the Republican National Convention and once gave a fiery speech denouncing the attacks and refusing to be Trump’s lapdog.

Ted Cruz: “I am not in the habit of supporting people who attack my wife and attack my father.” https://t.co/LMsN84Z2IT

“That pledge [to support the Republican nominee] was not a blanket commitment that if you go and slander and attack Heidi, that I’m going to nonetheless come like a servile puppy dog and say thank you very much for maligning my wife and maligning my father,” Cruz said at the time. Just a couple years later he wrote a fawning love letter to Trump in TIME magazine.

.@BetoORourke to @TedCruz: “If the president attacks you personally…how you respond is your business. But when the president attacks our institutions…that is our business.”

Racial justice (or injustice) was a recurring theme in the debate, highlighted by the two candidates’ vastly different responses to the tragic shooting of an African-American Dallas man in his home by a white police officer who claims she thought she was entering her own apartment. O’Rourke called for the officer to be fired and Cruz attacked his opponent for being too quick to pass judgment and “siding against the police.” (I don’t know about you, but a police officer who can’t crack the case of which apartment she lives doesn’t seem like someone you want on the force.)

The closing question also provided a telling contrast between the two. Prompted by moderators to say one nice thing about the other, O’Rourke said he admired Cruz’s work ethic and how he’s sacrificed for the things he believes in. “I know how hard he works,” O’Rourke said. “I have no question that Senator Cruz wants to do the best for America.”

But when it was Cruz’s turn he couldn’t resist getting in one last dig at O’Rourke. “O’Rourke is passionate, energetic — He believes in what he is fighting for,” Cruz said. “Bernie Sanders believes in what he is fighting for. He believes in socialism. I think when he is fighting for doesn’t work, but I think you are sincere like Bernie, you believe in expanding government and higher taxes.”

“True to form,” O’Rourke replied.

Polls so far have shown the Texas Senate race is close and the non-partisan Cook Political Report recently moved the race from the “Lean Republican” column to the “Toss-Up” column. Cruz’s defeat would be a stunning upset, helping Democrats in their longshot bid to retake control of the Senate for the first time in eight years.

The two men will debate again on September 30th in Houston and October 16th in San Antonio.